When Women Wrote Hollywood – 36 in a series – Joan Harrison

To highlight the wonderful yet largely forgotten work of a collection of female screenwriters from the early years of Hollywood (and as a companion to the book, When Women Wrote Hollywood) we will be posting quick bits about the many films they wrote along with links to further information and clips from their works which are still accessible online. Take a few moments once or twice a week to become familiar with their names and their stories. I think you’ll be surprised at how much bold material these writers tackled at the birth of this new medium. — Rosanne Welch

When Women Wrote Hollywood – 36 in a series – Joan Harrison

When Women Wrote Hollywood - 36 in a series - Joan Harrison

Born in Guildford, Surrey, Harrison studied at St Hugh’s College, Oxford and reviewed films for the student newspaper. She also studied at the Sorbonne. In 1933, she became Alfred Hitchcock’s secretary. Eventually she began reading books and scripts for him and became one of Hitchcock’s most trusted associates. Harrison appears in a scene in Hitchcock’s original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), eating dinner with Peter Lorre’s character. She was among the screenwriters for the film Jamaica Inn (1939) based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier.

When Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in March 1939 to begin his contract with David O. Selznick to direct films, Harrison went with him as an assistant and writer.[1] She continued contributing to the screenplays for Hitchcock’s films Rebecca (1940), also adapted from a du Maurier novel, Foreign Correspondent(1940), Suspicion (1941), and Saboteur (1942). She was also credited as one of the screenwriters for Dark Waters (1944). — Wikipedia 

More about Joan Harrison

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Related posts:

  1. When Women Wrote Hollywood – 20 in a series – Lois Weber
  2. When Women Wrote Hollywood – 33 in a series – The Little Foxes (1941) – Wr: Lillian Hellman
  3. When Women Wrote Hollywood – 8 in a series – Bess Meredyth
  4. When Women Wrote Hollywood – 12 in a series – Marion Fairfax
  5. When Women Wrote Hollywood – 14 in a series – Eve Unsell

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